En teoria un libro para niños de 9 a 11 años pero que es interesante tambien para adultos. Una historia de una refujiada y el niño que la ayuda. Los personajes estan muy bien hechos y todo ocurre muy naturalmente. El niño tiene 12 años y empieza a ser abiertamente rebelde con sus padres por ejemplo que es mas o menos la edad. ( )

Alan Silverman lives in New York City during World War II. He's a Jewish boy, and his favorite past time is playing stickball with his best friend, Shawn. But when a girl and her mother, Jewish refugees from Nazi occupied France, move into the building, Alan's parents ask him to try to make friends with Naomi, because she has been deeply traumatized by what happened in France before she came to New York. (She witnessed her father being bludgeoned to death by the Gestapo.)
At first, Alan agrees, with extreme reluctance. He's young enough to just see girls as sissies, who he wants nothing to do with. But he goes, trying to make friends with Naomi through an old Charlie McCarthy ventriloquist's mannequin he's had in his closet for years.
There is a good stretch of the book that focuses on Alan's attempts to bring Naomi out. At first, she ignores him completely, obsessively tearing paper into tiny shreds. But soon, she allows her own doll to talk to Charlie, though she still won't talk to Alan directly. Very slowly, she opens up to Alan more and more. And when I say "very slowly," this part of the book drags a little, yet, it is necessary to properly develop the characters for the rest of the book.
There are also issues between Alan and Shawn, because he's tried to hide his growing friendship with Naomi (a girl!) from his buddy.
The last third of the book picks up the pace dramatically, but what happens there is best read without spoilers.
Excellent. Can't quite give five stars because the first half of the book is so slowly paced that it drags a little. ( )

Holy cow. ?áThe only author I can think of who is writing books like this today is Sonya Hartnett. ?áThe cover of this is not a good indication of the book as a whole. ?áAnd yet I'm very glad I read this (even though I've read *lots* of WWII hist. fic. for children and am, tbh, burnt out on it) and do highly recommend it. ?áInterested readers might also look to Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli.

?áI definitely appreciate the light moments in here, for example when Alan and the librarian pretend that he's picking out books by color because he's going to use them for his building projects.
And I like his teacher, and wish we saw more of her:

Adults are such pains in the neck. ?áSo condescending. ?áThey think children are children. ?áAnd they aren't; that's the secret. ?áSometimes, I forget..."" ( )

I loved this book, with a caveat I mention below. It reminds me of books I read in late middle school, but a quite a bit heavier than what I got back then, and I appreciate the newer books (even one this old) for that reason. I wish that it had been published a dozen years earlier because I'd have loved it back when I was 10-12. If I was on a normal reading schedule, this is a book I could read in a day or two, and I think it would have been more satisfying to read it through in a sitting or two.

That said, the ending, the way it was done, made me long for this book to be a more in depth for adults book. Funny because I love kids’ books so much I don’t often feel that way. If I was 9-12 or 13, the target age, the entire book likely would have satisfied me. The subject matter was covered very well, but I wanted more. I’d like to read a for adults novel about these characters/situation.

The characters and the settings were done so well. Very evocative for me, of my childhood and books I read back then, even though the books I read and my personal experiences were wildly different than the characters and subject matter in this book.

The people were done well, especially the kids, but the adults too, and many were likeable, and those who weren’t were still understandable. I like the slight mystery element, and appreciated that it’s solved fairly early on.

Even though I am not buying books and should be spending zero dollars on books, I bought this and one other. I have to try to use some of my alternative libraries. More and more, my public library doesn’t have the books I want to read. That’s frustrating. Still, I cannot buy books any longer. I might make exceptions for some vegan books (to support the authors and the ethical stance) and possibly some other reference books as well, but not many and nothing else that I can think of offhand. I’m glad I read this though.

I can recommend it to both/all genders ages 9-13, particularly kids who are interested in history, and/or in children who’ve had trauma, in bullying and fitting in with peers in the middle school and upper elementary years, and friendship stories. ( )

Heartbreakingly realistic, Alan and Naomi tracks the reluctant friendship between two very different kids. Alan's life is pretty normal until his mother forces him to befriend Naomi, who was traumatized during WWII. Alan's conflicted feelings about his friends, his family, and Naomi are at the heart of this book. ( )